Positivity:For each chemical with a positive (carcinogenic) experiment in the
Carcinogenic Potency Database (CPDB), results are included
on carcinogenic potency (TD50) in each species and target sites in males and females.
Positivity is determined by an author’s opinion in a published paper.
If all experimental results in the CDPB are negative in a sex-species group, “no positive” appears.
If the CPDB has no experiments in the sex-species group, “no test” appears.
The summary presents the strongest evidence of carcinogenicity in
each group. If there are both positive and negative
experiments in a sex-species, the negative results are
ignored in this Summary Table.

Target Site Codes: pan = pancreas.
Target sites are listed if any author of published experimental results concluded that tumors were
induced in that organ by the test agent.
If there is more than one positive experiment in
a sex-species, target sites listed may be from more than one
experiment, e.g. if liver and lung are both listed, then liver may have
been a target in one experiment and lung in another.

TD50:Our standardized measure of carcinogenic potency,
TD50,
is the daily dose rate in mg/kg body weight/day to induce tumors in half of test animals that would have
remained tumor-free at zero dose.
Whenever there is more than one positive experiment in a species, the reported TD50 value is a
Harmonic Mean
calculated using the TD50 value from the most potent target site in each positive experiment.

Superscripts: x =
The NTP Technical Report in male rats concluded that corn oil, safflower oil and tricaprylin
caused adenomas of the exocrine pancreas, but no level of evidence of carcinogenicity was
assigned by NTP.

The Carcinogenic Potency Database (CPDB) is a unique and widely used international resource of the results of
6540 chronic, long-term animal cancer tests on 1547 chemicals. The CPDB provides easy access to the bioassay
literature, with qualitative and quantitative analyses of both positive and negative experiments that have been
published over the past 50 years in the general literature through 2001 and by the National Cancer
Institute/National Toxicology Program through 2004. The CPDB standardizes the diverse literature of cancer
bioassays that vary widely in protocol, histopathological examination and nomenclature, and in the published
author’s choices of what information to provide in their papers. Results are reported in the CPDB for
tests in rats, mice, hamsters, dogs, and nonhuman primates.

For each experiment, information is included on species, strain, and sex of test animal; features of experimental
protocol such as route of administration, duration of dosing, dose level(s) in mg/kg body weight/day, and
duration of experiment; experimental results are provided on target organ, tumor type, and tumor incidence;
carcinogenic potency (TD50) and
its statistical significance; shape of the dose-response, author’s opinion as to carcinogenicity, and
literature citation.

TD50 provides a standardized quantitative measure that can be used for comparisons and
analyses of many issues in carcinogenesis. The range of TD50 values across chemicals that
are rodent carcinogens is more than 100 million-fold.
More than half the chemicals tested are positive in at least one experiment.

A plot of all results on each experiment in the CPDB for this chemical is presented below.
These results are the source information for the Cancer Test Summary table above.

Oil, safflower: All Experiments and Citations in CPDB

The definition of each code in the plot below will appear in a pop-up window when the field
name in the header line is clicked, e.g.,
Strain,
Site,
Path.
Each numbered line starts a new experiment and reports protocol information in black.
Average daily dose-rates per kg body weight per day are in green. Remaining lines report
experimental results in blue.

Relatively precise estimates of the lower confidence limit on the
TD10 (LTD10) are readily calculated from
the TD50 and its lower confidence limit, which are reported in the CPDB.
For researchers and regulatory agencies interested in LTD10 values, we provide them in an
Excel spreadsheet.

PDF versions of our publications of analyses using the CPDB are available, organized by
year and by research topic.